UBS survey: Consumers want a folding iPhone and will pay $600 more for it

A UBS survey of consumers found a greater willingness to pay a premium and generally higher interest among Apple buyers for foldable iPhones and iPads.

:

Over a third of consumers surveyed by UBS recently had “reasonably high” interest in buying a folding smartphone, which the firm said is “particularly important for Apple” and its iPhone.

“Price remains the key hurdle in most consumers’ minds, while the adequate average premium vs regular smartphones surveyed to be c. US$400-500,” UBS analysts wrote in a note to investors.

“The survey indicates greater willingness to pay a premium (c. $600) and generally higher interest among Apple buyers for foldable products,” UBS added… UBS believes a folding Apple product could come next year, although it said “2021 is more likely.” UBS thinks the first folding Apple product is more likely to be an iPad than an iPhone.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple would easily get a $600 premium on folding iPhones and iPads.

As with fingerprint and facial recognition, when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, then foldable smartphones will have been done right. — MacDailyNews, January 17, 2019

Next Post

8 Comments

Comment navigation

I call “bull crap.” A folding iPhone is a gimmick.
What’s the point? What’s next? Consumers say they’d pay up to $1000 more for an iPhone that rolls up like a scroll…?
I think more consumers want a bezeless iPhone SE with under display Touch ID. Screw the Face ID crap.

Where do they get this crap from? I, for one, do not have any desire to own a folding smartphone and certainly not willing to pay such a premium for one. I can’t believe UBS did any sort of consumer survey for this and are probably relying on a few Youtuber’s opinions about having one. Folding smartphones will likely be quite unreliable for a few generations.

I can’t believe Apple would rush to build some bulky folding smartphone when they’re always trying to build some slim device and won’t even add a thicker battery. I call BS on any high consumer demand for a folding smartphone. Personally, I’m also not demanding a bezel-less smartphone. All that stuff is quite overdone for the sake of companies trying to outdo one another. A few extra millimeters of bezel isn’t going to hurt sales of a good overall smartphone.

Not much info on the question(s) asked. “Folding” doesn’t mean much. Folding to be smaller? Folding to be bigger? What failings do the respondents perceive a solution with a foldable phone. I, for one, would appreciate a “flexible” phone simple so I could carry my phone in my back pocket without worrying about bending it and breaking the screen. People don’t know what they want. Too many simply think “different” must be better.

The UBS Survey has to be FAKE NEWS … only airheads ‘say’ they want folding phones, but in reality won’t step up to buy them if available … because such phones’ll be FRAGILE and way TOO EXPENSIVE. We’re all astute enough to see that all of the Samsung “gimmicks” like their edge screens and forthcoming folding phones — that are curiosly delayed — eventually fall by the wayside as useless and silly. Can we now expect that Samsung will also be coming out with a copycat credit card made out of beryllium? …